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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I listened to the audiobook for this when it first came out - I don't remember a lot of the details other than that I didn't really like any of the characters and it was pretty depressing as someone who's not to that stage of life yet, but not far from it.  But I also couldn't stop listening to it and certain aspects of the plotline or the images from it have stuck with me.[/quote]

Which ones?

I sometimes get things from media I dislike - or don't feel quite settled by - stuck in my head, too. I thought Addie LaRue was a really engaging but frustrating book, for example - and sometimes out of nowhere I will picture her and Luc sitting at a nightclub, and just beg her to ask him some questions about his life while they're there. Don't just sit there petulantly, you have eternity to LEARN and discover things! (She doesn't listen).[/quote]

PP here.  *Spoilers*

The part about the wife who died young of Wilson disease.  I have pretty extreme medical anxiety, so this sort of thing sticks with me.

The sayings on the workout tanks.  I think of this (and chuckle) every time I see a workout shirt with words on it, on a person or while shopping.

The general sense of doom I had the whole time reading it.  It just felt like nothing good was possible - and then things would take a turn for the worse.[/quote]

This is OP - and that sense of doom just seemed so, I don't even know the word. It just seemed so self-inflicted. These people had every resource available to them and they were still just so miserable. If the point was, you can be rich as gd doing things you chose to do, and still be a miserable sonofab**ch, I guess point taken? If it was a critique of capitalism I didn't get that.

To me it seemed like the book was aimed at a more universal message - that women just can't win no matter what, and men are horny idiots. And I guess I just don't buy that? Maybe it was the lack of self-awareness about the book that got me the most. I do not find Toby and Rachel Fleishman to be relatable in the least. And I feel like all the readers were supposed to see ourselves in them and to see ourselves in their struggles. And sure - middle age, if we're lucky enough to get there, comes for us all, right? Who has enough money? Who's ever getting enough sex with the right people? But they just seemed so stunted and un-self-aware and WHINY that I couldn't take it.

Rachel, again, seemed most interesting to me. I was most engrossed when we shifted to her perspective. Still didn't find it super relatable but more interesting anyway. The narrator - I mean, I guess I could have read a book about her. I've read enough books about discontented middle aged suburbanites, why not. Her life didn't seem particularly interesting but it was interesting enough.

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